


5 Ways Bond Tries to Get an Exploding Pen From Q

by Castillon02



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 5 Times, Developing Relationship, Exploding pens, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 20:11:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12043398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: ...and one time Bond doesn't have to try. Developing relationship ficlet.





	5 Ways Bond Tries to Get an Exploding Pen From Q

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to @lapsang-and-earlgrey and @roseforthethorns for the quick once-over!

**1\. Bedroom eyes:**

“Off you fuck, go lay someone who doesn’t have more important things to do,” Q says cheerfully.

Bond leaves Q Branch empty-handed.

**2\. Bribery:**

“The answer is still no,” Q says, breaking the gourmet chocolate bar in half. He hands one half to Bond and takes an enormous bite out of the other half. “Mmmmm. Feel free to keep trying, though,” he says.

There’s already a chocolate smudge at the corner of Q’s mouth, and for a moment Bond forgets the pen in favor of fantasizing about interesting ways to clean Q up.

(Q’s answer is the same for the stolen German prototype and the miraculously-returned-in-one-piece Walther. In the latter case, Q takes the time to press a ‘Good job’ sticker onto one of Bond’s hideously expensive lapels and sends him an e-ticket to a Bon Jovi concert.

It’s the first concert Bond has been to in years that isn’t work-related, and it’s brilliant.)  

**3\. Annoyance:**

“For the thousandth time, no, 007,” Q says. “I will not make you an exploding car, pen, boat, shoe, tie, or tube of toothpaste. At this rate, however, I may well be tempted into designing an exploding condom just to see if you try to use it.”

Bond begins, “I had no idea you would be so interested in what I do with my–”

“–with your only exploding device?” Q interrupts dryly. “Metaphorically speaking, that is. Literally, you don’t have any.”

“Yet,” Bond says. “I don’t have any yet.”

Q doesn’t kick him out, so Bond sticks around, gossiping with the other boffins, observing Q, and mourning the fact that the C4 is kept in a room with special “No 00s Allowed” security measures.

He’s been hanging around Q Branch a lot, lately. The annoyance strategy requires frequent contact in order to wear down the target’s endurance, after all.

In the early days he had toyed with the idea of tricking one of Q’s staff into retrieving something from the armory for him, but most of them had demonstrated commendable loyalty and a surprising amount of spine when it came time to turn him down. He had exactly one taker, a lonely technician named Tom Watts who’d only wanted a nice date and a good fuck for his troubles, and somehow Bond’s feet had taken him to Q’s office shortly after that conversation, to report this potential breach in security.

He doesn’t only want an exploding pen, it seems. He wants Q to be the one to give it to him.

***

(Shortly after Bond speaks with Q, Q summons Watts to his office for a talk that has Watts leaving Q’s office pale-faced and shaking. The next day, Bond learns that Watts has been made co-chair of the Q Branch social event committee, a position in which he is all but guaranteed to build a stronger social safety net.

Leadership. Problem-solving. Q isn’t Q just because of his smarts.)

***

**Begging:**

“Wait, wait, I have to—will you  _please_  make me an exploding pen?” Bond asks, and maybe it’s not the right time, when he’s buried inside Q, Q’s thighs flexing around him, but poking and prodding Q hasn’t worked, and if there’s ever a time Bond could beg, it’s here and now, in this soft, warm place where he’s got nothing to do but whatever Q likes.   

Q stops moving, fully seated on Bond’s cock, and laughs a little. “Do you have a denial kink?” he asks, tilting his head at him.

Bond glares. He may or may not have a denial kink, but that hadn’t been the point. “I take it that’s a—a ‘no,’” he says, gasping as Q clenches around him, the evil little shit.

“You take it rightly,” Q says.

Bond grins. “I suppose we’ll have to make the explosions ourselves, then,” he says, thrusting upward, and it’s Q’s turn to gasp this time, and then they’re both looking at each other and something of the ridiculousness of the situation must be shared between them, because they both burst out laughing.

When the laughter ends, Q’s sprawled over his chest, looking up at him with his eyes still crinkled at the corners with amusement, and Bond’s looking down at him too, meeting his eyes, his chest growing tight for a reason he can’t name.

“Explosions,” Bond murmurs after a moment, a reminder.

Q clenches deliberately around him again. “Metaphorical ones,” he murmurs back. “Still the only kind you get.” And then he smiles and starts moving again.  

***

**Bargaining:**

“At least say I can have one if you die,” Bond says. “‘To James Bond, who gave me many orgasms and cooked me many nutritional meals, I leave one exploding pen.’ Is that so hard?”

Q arches his eyebrows and swallows his mouthful of couscous and lamb tagine. “One: being a relic of the Neolithic era, you’re much more likely to die before I do. And two, I can just imagine it: I finish the will, and two days later, hmm, Q hasn’t been in the office lately, and oh look, his cats have eaten his face off…”

“I would leave the cats enough food in their dish if I killed you!” Bond says indignantly. “And you could always make it on condition of your dying peacefully and of natural causes.”

Q shakes his head. “Not even if I die of unfaked natural causes,” he says. “It’s a matter of principle.”

“I should make it a principle that withholding arses don’t get baklava for dessert,” Bond grumbles, but he gives Q some anyway.

***

**And one time he doesn’t have to ask:**

“Come help me test a prototype on the range,” Q says to him one day, near the end of his shift, and it’s such a normal thing for him to ask that Bond doesn’t think twice, just closes his paperback and heaves his mission-battered body off of the sofa in Q’s office.

The range lighting can be dimmed to simulate real-world conditions, and it is when they walk in—lights low and murky, almost enough to raise Bond’s hackles about potential attackers, except for the scarce odds of Q’s tech being fooled into missing someone’s presence.

“Your target is there,” Q says, gesturing at a red dot on the back wall, like a laser sight. He presses a cool, smooth, cylindrical object into Bond’s hand. “Click three times, and then throw—the blast shields will come up automatically.”

“Is this…?” Bond stops and holds up the pen, sleek and beautiful and dangerous.

“Go on,” Q says. “We have to test them before we can issue them.” And Bond hears that he’s smiling, but he also hears the hidden hitch in Q’s breath, the way that Q’s lungs have pulled tight.

This isn’t an ordinary prototype.

He could call the thing off, turn the lights on, ask for an explanation—

Instead he does what he generally does in the field, which is hit the target Q tells him to hit. He hefts the pen in his hand, clicks it three times, and throws it in a neat arc down the range, the low lights glinting off of the pen’s metallic body, the transparent blast shields falling from the ceiling with a pneumatic thunk as the pen falls closer and closer towards that red dot of light.

The pen explodes in a burst of flame that covers the red light and a significant portion of the target wall. When the flame fades, Bond sees two words written on the wall in large letters—they must have been painted with a heat-sensitive invisible ink.

 _Marry Me?_  the painted words on the wall ask.

Bond turns to Q, trying and failing to swallow the lump in his throat.

“Will you?” Q asks, and his voice is steady, it’s always steady, but everywhere else he’s trembling.

Bond crushes him in an embrace. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

***

“Your equipment, 007,” Q says to him, over a year after handing Bond that first exploding pen prototype. His voice remains as crisp and formal as ever in Q Branch, though he allows a hint of a smile to linger at the corners of his mouth. “Walther PPK, standard field radio, and this: a bit of a wedding present for you.” He hands Bond a sleek designer pen, remarkably similar to that first prototype except in one respect: this time, it’s being officially issued to him.

“Why, Q, you shouldn’t have,” Bond says, not bothering to hide his grin. Then something that isn’t the pen clicks. “Hang on, is this why our engagement was so long? You made us wait until the committee approved these, didn’t you!”

“You’re welcome,” Q says, looking utterly pleased with himself. “Now, do try to bring the equipment back in one piece.” His eyes linger, taking Bond in from his toes to his hair.

“Just a moment,” Bond says. “The other Mr. Bond in the room hasn’t been equipped yet.” He smirks at Q’s wide eyes and says, “Hold out your hand.” Once Q does so, Bond retrieves his wedding band from his inner jacket pocket and drops it onto Q’s open palm. “Put it with yours,” he says, nodding at the chain barely visible around Q’s neck, the ring itself out of sight beneath Q’s shirt. “You can give it back to me when I return my equipment.”

 _When I come back_ , Bond doesn’t say, because he can’t promise, not really. But if Q can make exploding pens happen, then he can do this. He can promise to try.  

“All right,” Q says. “I’ll do my best to keep it in one piece.”  _I’ll stay safe_ , Q doesn’t say, but he clenches Bond’s ring in his fist, and that’s enough.   

“Now off you fuck, go lay someone who doesn’t have more important things to do,” Bond says, waving a dismissive hand and turning to go.

He leaves Q Branch with an exploding pen in his pocket and Q’s startled laughter in his ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is welcome <3


End file.
